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There must be more than 3 million schools in the world and many more educational programs, libraries, makerspaces, learning communities and other setups where learning is intentionally nurtured. We will refer to all of them as “schools”. So, if you are a learner that wants to design her own university, a learning designer, a teacher, a parent, a school principal or an entrepreneur … how do you find the schools that can be a source of inspiration and learning?

In the context of the Schools Around The World project, we have our first challenge: find too many cool schools. I’m dropping here some quick ideas for the starting the search and an invitation to help improve this.

Research online:

Usediigo in your research. It makes it easy (browser button) to save links, organize them in tags and share them. Join theSchools Around the World group and/or use the #saw18 tag;

Use google, of course, but also …

Go through some articles about your specific topic and try to find examples of schools and search terms. Some nice places to start could beEdutopia orMindShift.

Ask:

Write a short description of what kind of “schools” you would like to find; This is a divergent phase when you would like to go wide and receive unexpected recommendations, so give specific “tags” (like: #life-skills, #science-education, #life-long-learning, #self-directed-learning) and examples (like Summerhill School) but also leave room for people to come up with whatever they know; Here iswhat I wrote once;

Directly (email) ask the people who’s projects or vision around learning you admire;

This news felt perfect! This guy is brilliant and after trying one university in US and one in Poland, decided to break free. This is no doubt the work that fulfills me … helping young people breaking free from university. Only 999.999 to go :-)

These days, when I’m counting every sol, a donation comes out of nowhere in my RON account. It sais “today it’s my treat”. The dear friend that sent it explains on whatsapp: “I was thinking of those days when we were in the town and you were buying the food … and I said that if I were there with you, I’d like to buy you a lunch”.

It’s one of those amazingly beautiful things that can happen because I put myself in a vulnerable position. People can help you only if you need help and they know it. My ideal used to be to not need help, but I realise what a poor life that would have been.

I landed on Mexico City on 16th of May and flew out on 22nd of October, after 160 days. The original plan was to stay for two months. I spent most of my time in 6 (/31) mexican states: Chiapas, Estado de México, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Mexico City. I also briefly visited Zacatecas, Michoacán and Quintana Roo. I visited six alternative universities:

I wrote about three of them here. In this article, I will look at the overall experience and the ways in which I was impacted. After five months and thousands of km, I feel that I learned, I changed and I expanded in significant ways. I got to know Mexico through the interaction with hundreds of people that generously hosted me, shared their stories and their tortillas, invited me to parties, took me on hundreads of km roadtrips, gave me directions and answered my curious questions. To them, to the awesome mexicans I met, I’m grateful for the good times I had and for leaving Mexico a different person. Here are three ways in which this experience transformed and enriched me:

(1) In the footsteps of Freire and Illich
From the beginning of my journey, there were two powerful thinkers whose traces I wanted to follow: Ivan Illich – the maverick social critic of modern institutions and Paulo Freire the creator of the pedagogy of the oppressed. I wanted to see their ideas in practice. I was delighted to find both Freire’s ideas developed and actualized in Puebla at Universidad Campesina Indígena en Red, in the form of “pedagogia del sujeto” and Illich’s radical thinking taking a concrete form in Unitierra Oaxaca and Unitierra Chiapas.

These projects work in rural and indigenous communities and are similar in their aims but slightly differ in approach. Seeing them in their context greatly enriched my thinking. I was inspired to see my future work in a rural context, creating learning environments that help people oppressed or ignored by the system build their autonomy, reclaim the dignity of their lives and defend their lands and livelihood. More than that, I see these people being able to inspire everyone else that another world is possible. I switched my focus from “learning spaces” to “being spaces” that have learning as a core process. I see myself designing a nation or a village rather than a school. I had a glimpse through Unitierra at the potential of informality and destructuring learning structures like diplomas, curriculums, professions. Through UCI Red, I came to appreciate and live the “fecundity of the encounter” and to value the idea of meeting people where they are, offering, for example, diplomas if that is what they want. I got to understand the two approaches as being beautifully complementary. And I got to see education, or better said learning, as a deeply political act.

(2) Learning Architects as models of being
I’m always in search of role-models – people that by their way of being stimulate and inspire my own becoming. Mexico was generous with role-models. I will mention a few who’s living example will nurture my process of becoming a better learning architect:

To Victoria I’m grateful for being a joyful, curious and voracious learner, a generous learning partner and inspiring in me the joy of living and learning.

With Victoria, learning about medicine plants from Don Lupe

To Doris & Oscar I’m grateful for being an example of choosing a life of service and generosity, looking at people with infinite kindness and cultivating a humble force.

With Oscar and Doris, at UMA in Valle de Bravo

To Benjamin I’m grateful for being a genius in disguise, searching deep in philosophy, synthesizing and creating powerful ideas at the same time with being beautifully alive and humane, funny and hospitable.

With Benjamin and Jorge, after a long drive from Puebla – Zacatecas – Michoacan – Puebla

To Gustavo I’m grateful for the strength and dedication in keeping alive and embodying a radical thinking model that the world needs and for the clarity of the worldview from which it springs.

With Gustavo and Unitierra team, at a workshop for starting a community radio.

(3) Zapata vive!
The plutocratic condition of the world walks without the mask in Mexico and I stared at its ugly face. There are everyday things like the aberrant highway fees making it so that the rich and the poor even drive on different roads, not to mention going to different schools and living in different neighbourhoods. Beyond the everyday inequality, a climate of violence came through many stories I heard, especially a brutal repression against people resisting the system. Nine people were killed in teachers protests in Oaxaca this year and two years before 43 trainee teachers were disappeared in Ayotzinapa. “It was the state” said a huge message displayed by Roger Waters in his concert in Mexico City, reflecting what most of the people I talked with think about Ayotzinapa. These two examples illustrate a general climate of brutality in which some brave people find the strength to resist and fight back. They say “Zapata vive, la lucha sigue” in the face of this brutal and out of control system. At enormous risk, with few material resources, people organize and resist. Marching with the teachers against the neoliberal reforms, hearing about the takeover and self organization of the town of Cheran, the zapatista movement, the Oaxaca commune in 2006 was like drinking from the fountain of hope and courage. After 500 years the colonization continues and the resistance is there, teaching the world to resist and to hope.

I said goodbye Mexico with gratitude and nostalgia. There is so much more to discover and learn and there are so many noble fights to fight. I hope to be back soon. Thank you Mexico for this first round!

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Hi, I’m Traian!

I call myself a Learning Architect. I'm on a mission to create a new kind of university. I worked for the past twelve years trying to transform higher education in Romania. First I was a student activist and then I co-founded the Alternative University in Bucharest. Now I'm on a round-the-world trip to write "Break Free from University" - a book about radical innovation in higher education.